“A Chaos Of Feeling”: Screaming Fan Girls Past And Present

By Savannah Cox on July 2, 2015

A girl caught up in the moment at a 1960s Beatles show.

Teen and pre-teen girls have caught a lot of flack for their dogged adoration of pop stars like Justin Bieber and One Direction. And in some cases, rightly so: on several occasions, Bieber fans–popularly coined as “Beliebers”–have actually issued death threats to people (often women) who get too close to their carefully-coiffed obsession.

In 2011, when Bieber failed to win a Grammy for best new artist, fans vandalized the Wikipedia page of Esperanza Spalding, the jazz artist who bested Bieber for the title. And lest it be forgotten, after Zayn Malik called it quits with One Direction early in 2015, teen girls began to share images on social media which indicated that they had physically harmed themselves after hearing the news.

While these fans may seem insufferable–and often are authentically, unabashedly so–such attributes have less to do with the generation specifically and more with the technology that allows the hysteria to circulate so quickly and widely. Can you imagine what a Beatles fan would have tweeted during their 1964 tour in the United States, or what images an Elvis Presley devotee would share following the announcement of his engagement to the young Priscilla?

In a 1992 essay on Beatlemania, authors Barbara Ehrenreich, Elizabeth Hess and Gloria Jacobs wrote that “For girls, fandom offered a way not only to sublimate romantic and sexual yearnings but to carve out subversive versions of heterosexuality. To abandon control—to scream, faint, dash about in mobs—was, in form if not conscious intent, to protest the sexual repressiveness, the rigid double standard of female teen culture.”

As girls’ bodies begin to change and sexuality becomes less of an idea that lurks beneath Barbie’s dress and more of a reality begging to be examined firsthand, the feelings that a girl develops come not just with desire, but fear. The sexual world is new and difficult to navigate, especially when it stands before you, flexing its pelvis and singing its promises of pleasure.

Elvis Presley fans gather at Graceland for his birthday. Source: The Tennessean

Said writer Rachel Monroe in an essay on the subject, “Teenage girls have been mocked for their crushes, but that scorn is just a shoddy mask for the anxiety these crushes inspire. Because a teenage girl with a crush is frightening. The Beatles were always on the run from shoving, hysterical girl-crowds, who wanted—what? To crush into them, to crush themselves, to crush against other girl-bodies that were all feeling the same feeling together, a chaos of feeling, a feeling that took your breath away.”

Rather than responding to the singular appeal of artists like One Direction and Justin Bieber, today’s teen and pre-teen female fans bring the legacy of music’s complex, seemingly magical relationship with human hormones and sexual defiance into the present. The shrieking and squealing is still there; it’s just shared a bit differently. See the similarities below in this gallery of hysterical fans past:

Beatle fans get hysterical at a December 1963 show. Source: Getty Images

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Beatles fans wait for their idols to exit ABC Television Studios in Teddington, England. According to Getty, fans waited three hours in the rain only to be told that the Beatles would not be leaving for at least another eight hours. The fans stayed and waited. Source: Getty Images

In November 1963, girls wait at the door of the Prince of Wales Theatre, where The Beatles are rehearsing for the Royal Command Performance. Source: Getty Images

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Beatles fans go nuts in New York. Source: Getty Images

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On May 30th, 1975, teenage girls scream and cry at the sight of The Osmonds. Source: Getty Images

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15th March 1965: British police hold back excited young Beatles fans hoping for a glimpse of their musical heroes during the filming of the musical 'Help', on location in London. (Photo by Stan Meagher/Express/Getty Images)

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Policemen attempt to control a crowd of young female Beatles fans. Source: Getty Images

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In May 1975, Bay City Roller fans shriek at a concert in Swansea. 16 of them had to be taken to hospital. Source: Getty Images

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In August 1964 a fan is escorted off the stage as The Rolling Stones perform at the Wimbledon Palais, London. Source: Getty Images

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A fan lies crying on the stage at a May 1974 concert by the British rock group Slade. Source: Getty Images

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Rolling Stones fans watch the band at an August 1964 concert at the Wimbledon Palais, London. Source: Getty Images